Congrats to you and the future Mrs. Velocity and the future little Velociettes!
Sounds like the story of my life.* :mad:
*Except for the $10 million part. 
Congrats to Velocity!
… But put me down as skeptical re: expensive diamonds.
I’ve heard that artificial diamonds are very good these days, but cheaper than natural diamonds. Is that true? For that matter, how difficult is it to distinguish cubic zirconia from real diamonds? One tip-off, I guess, is that with fakes the color and clarity are too good. :smack: And it “is nearly impossible, even for trained appraisers, to tell the difference between moissanite and diamond by looking at them.”
As for rarity, astronomers think we are a mere 40 light-years away from a planet that contains a diamond weighing perhaps 25 million trillion gigacarats. And though much farther away, the companion of pulsar J1719-1438 is thought also to be a large diamond.
Do expensive diamonds come with some sort of warranty?
Long ago I encountered a rule of thumb: A diamond’s value is roughly proportional to the square of its weight. For rubies, use the cube of the weight. Any validity?
In the 1970s Russian scientists discovered a huge diamond field created from an asteroid impact. The government kept it a secret up until a few years ago:
The article I linked to upthread talks about artificial (lab-created) diamonds. The problem with them is that there is no secondary market for them. The diamond dealers won’t give you any money for one should you choose to sell it. If you have no plans to do so, then go ahead and buy one.
If the function of a diamond is to send as much incident light as possible back toward the viewer, then it seems obvious that a flawless, white diamond is indeed functionally better than a diamond with yellow tint and occlusions/flaws.
If they’re equal carat, color and clarity are probably equally responsible for price difference. I seriously doubt any equal carat diamonds are going to have a 300x price difference though. The low cost one would have to be complete garbage with the expensive one being utter perfection.
Non-colorless gems are a bit more popular now, probably due to marketing, but nobody wants inclusions you can see with the naked eye.
I won’t paste any direct links about De Beers marketing because there are 15.1 mil according to Google search, but the value of diamonds are 99.9% based on De Beers marketing. They’re “valuable” because De Beers has successfully duped people into believing they are. They have no intrinsic value at any size other than dust which is used to create hard cutting tools.
To answer your first and second questions, artificial diamonds are usually, but not always cheaper than an equivalent size natural diamond (due to supply and demand) and could be even cheaper if more people accepted them as an alternative to a natural one.
They’re so nearly indistinguishable from a natural diamond, as you stated, it requires a jeweler’s eye to tell the difference and even then it’s not always 100% accurate, that some natural diamonds have a serial number engraved on it with a laser and that number is printed on a Certificate of Authenticity. Of course this is just a another marketing ploy to ensure the artificially high costs of diamonds.
As for your third question, it’s simple. Larger diamonds are less common (not rare) than smaller diamonds and catch the eye quicker, and are more valuable because they’re marketed to be so.
I challenge you or anyone else in the general public to be able to tell the difference between near-flawless and a “flawless”* gem of any kind. A lot of people, including celebrities with high value gems often wear fake duplicates of the originals and keep the originals in a lockbox somewhere. After the 100th time wearing the real thing, no one questions or looks closely enough to be able to distinguish a fake with the real thing.
*There are no truly flawless gems, there are always inclusions of some kind if you look hard enough.
Here’s an expert definition of inclusions that affect “value” (my emphasis):
"Diamond Clarity Grades
As with color, tiny differences only apparent to the grader can have a significant impact on value. Diamond clarity grading best exemplifies this. Several grades indicate diamonds with inclusions invisible to the naked eye, which have no affect on the stone’s beauty. However, the difference in value is substantial. At one end, you have something that an expert with 10X magnification can find with difficulty. At the other, you have something that is easy to find with magnification."
"Balancing Clarity and Price
Although eye visible inclusions always affect value, you can sometimes use this to your advantage. I remember one young woman showing off her diamond engagement ring. She had me look real close to see three tiny black dots. By accepting those small inclusions, invisible from further away than six inches, her fiancé could afford a much larger diamond."
https://www.gemsociety.org/article/a-consumers-guide-to-gem-grading/
Again, marketing and a “wink, wink, nudge, nudge”, network of those how perpetrate that marketing. Jewelers are the used car salespersons of the industry. “Sure, the car is underpowered, but think of all the gas you’ll save!”, “Sure, this isn’t flawless, but you can get a bigger <insert gem> for the same price!”
Everyone is talking about diamonds only but the OP mentions looking for rings not just loose diamonds.
With jewelry you are also paying for the craftsmanship and design of the piece. So yeah a ring by a well known and respected designer is going to be more. Sure some of what you are paying is for the name. You can probably find a cheaper similar piece but you need to decide if it’s as well made.
I remember searching a gravel parking lot for a diamond that fell out of an engagement ring. That’s not something you want to do.
If you want to sell your diamond, you have to go to a pawn shop, sell it privately, or sell it on eBay. No jewelry store will buy your diamond. My friend had a $10,000 diamond ring with an insurance appraisal paper, and after a year and a half sold it for only $2k.
Before my current profession someone I worked with was overly proud of a new huge engagement ring she was given. She was pretty obnoxious about it. I glanced at it and made appropriate noises. My girlfriend told me she looked at it and there was a giant flaw visible with the naked eye. Sure enough a couple of days latter she accidentally knocked the ring into something and the diamond cracked in half.
You’re right. I could not tell the difference between a “near-flawless” (we’ll say VS1 for sake of argument) and an IF diamond, because VS1 needs 10x magnification to see imperfection. However, a near colorless VS1 diamond of respectable size isn’t going to be $200. Not by a longshot. I had to return my wife’s first engagement ring because it had an inclusion that was visible to the naked eye (she could tell the difference - even though schlub me didn’t really care), and it was a fair bit more than $200 back then ($600 25 years ago IIRC), and “only” a half carat.
I think people are talking about loose gems because a setting can vary so much in material, size and craftmanship that discussing it is practically pointless.
I mean, if the OP doesn’t know why platinum costs more than sterling silver then they’re beyond hope.
Hi, another follow up question: how much difference is there between a 6 and 6.5 ring size? Is it the difference between a ring that cannot be put on and one that might fall off?
You can all come to Murfreesboro, AR and dig for your own diamonds. Just helping the tourist commission drum up trade:)
It’s big enough that a ring that is just slightly loose in summer will fall off in winter if you live where the temperature dips down into the low 50s.
Guys, some advice from someone who’s been there and done that:
As soon as you are comfortable enough in a relationship (these don’t all come at the same time) find out:
- Lingerie size (bra in particular).
- Ring size.
- Gold or silver?
- Dress size (and keep it up to date along with 1 above).
- Other than diamond, favorite gemstone?
- Bright colors, dark colors, black, or white?
And write it down! It will save a ton of hassle at gift buying (or ring buying) time.
I focused on the obvious stuff because of the nature of the thread, but the advice stands for a lot of other things (fiction/non-fiction, etc, etc, etc).
Congrats -
Rings can be resized. And, over the course of a woman’s life - will likely need to be. Our fingers and joints all change size as we age.
Consider estate jewelry…as someone said upthread, reselling diamonds on the sellers end is dismal, so you can often get some good deals on previously owned jewelry - and the designs can be lovely. Most of my non-art pieces are estate.
Alternatively, consider something custom - my wedding/engagement ring were designed by my husband and I.
Consider ethically sourced stones - more expensive - but stones out of Canada probably didn’t involve child labor, guns or near slavery.
Consider resetting a heirloom stone - if you ask, its possible someone is sitting on grandma’s diamond.
Consider not a diamond. Colored stones are lovely and also make great engagement rings.
Consider what your future wife will be doing with her hands when choosing a setting. My ring is channel set because I had my hands in hardware all the time when we got engaged and a high set ring would have gotten in the way (hence the customized jewelry)
Use a jeweler - not a huge retailer of diamonds making money off the wedding market - hopefully someone with a decent estate section.
Very good lab created diamonds are now available - I think they are still expensive. One of the tricks to using not real gemstones to effect is to make sure they are a reasonable size. No one is going to believe you bought Elizabeth Taylor sized diamonds, so don’t buy Elizabeth Taylor sized fake diamonds.
Don’t buy jewelry over your budget - it has little resale value if you are buying retail - it isn’t an investment - its a bauble (and I say this as someone with a LOT of gems in my possession). Over the course of a marriage so many things will require financial attention that are more important the the caret, cut, color, and clarity of a diamond. If your budget is smaller, some of the tips above can buy a ring that you don’t need to use a microscope to see the stones.
Much easier to throw out 1 and 4 and never presume to buy any clothing as a gift. It’s too much of a personal choice.
Estate, or otherwise used, is a great suggestion. You can buy a lot more stone for your money. A caveat with other gemstones—and I love the idea of oddball gems like alexandrite or padparascha sapphires—is that many may be soft enough to be easily scratched, like beryl such as emerald. Leach has a point that a good setting may be pricey. But worth it. My fiancee drools over a setting from Boucheron that’s a miniature hand grasping the solitaire stone. That’ll cost you over something from Jared.
Dresses can fit very differently, depending on designer and style. Plus, a dress may technically fit, yet not be flattering. As above, I wouldn’t buy clothing and expect the recipient to keep it
Congratulations!